Gabon

The Schweitzer Hospital in Gabon

The Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, has approximately 120 beds, including surgery, maternity, pediatrics and internal medicine, along with a busy outpatient clinic. Residents spend their mornings attending rounds and helping with the management of inpatients. In the afternoon they assist in the 'polyclinique', which is the outpatient center. A resident may see 10 to 15 patients with medical issues ranging from hypertension or osteoarthritis to undiagnosed HIV or tuberculosis. The residents may also attend to patients in the emergency room. Appropriate backup from other internists is always provided. Residents live on the hospital compound that also contains housing for a large portion of the hospital staff, a school, a day care, a museum at the site of the original hospital, and a small shop. All of the staff and the vast majority of patients speak French.

BIDMC general internist Dr. Lachlan Forrow, is currently President of The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship and Vice President of the governing Council of the Schweitzer Hospital. In 1940, the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship was founded in the United States to support Dr. Schweitzer's medical work in Africa during World War II. Since Dr. Schweitzer's death in 1965, the Fellowship has continued to provide direct assistance to the Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon, and, and more recently, to underserved communities within the United States. BIDMC is a sister hospital and home to the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship Program, which trains physicians to help underserved people throughout America and the world.